Secular Jewish identity and Judaism without God

Modernity, by loosening religion's grip on the definition of Jewish belonging, permitted the emergence of resolutely secular Jewish identities, which claim attachment to the Jewish people without adherence to traditional religious beliefs and practices. This Jewish secularism has taken diverse forms: Zionist nationalism grounded in the Hebrew language and the land, Bundist socialism attached to Yiddish culture and diasporic autonomy, or simply cultural, historical, literary, and even culinary identity. In Israel, a large portion of the Jewish population defines itself as hiloni (secular) while sharing a Hebrew cultural framework and a nationalized calendar. In the United States and other diasporas, Jewish belonging is frequently lived in an ethnic and cultural mode rather than a confessional one. This widespread phenomenon raises fundamental questions about the boundaries of Jewish identity, about what ensures its continuity, and about the conditions of its transmission from one generation to the next in the absence of religion.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan
• Jewish Virtual Library ↗